Since its inception, Snowboy Productions’ IT’S TITS! has been an annual gathering place for female snowboarders. Created by Snowboy’s Krush Kulesza alongside Barrett Christy and Jess Kimura, at its core it is a week for riders to get together and go boarding, while benefiting Boarding for Breast Cancer, but it is also a rare instance that brings together such a large swath of the women’s snowboarding community. Since the event launched at Boreal five years ago, IT’S TITS! has continued to grow, a week that has introduced and reinforced connection within snowboarding on the women’s side (and beyond).
Last May, as IT’S TITS! returned after the pandemic forced its cancellation in 2021, Barrett and I wanted to create an opportunity that would add to the on hill portion of the event by fostering discussion and further building bonds between women, women-identifying, and non-binary individuals. The event was called the Pitch Sessions, a panel-led, open discussion between everyone at IT’S TITS! It was an opportunity to learn from six experienced, wise, and thoughtful individuals: Barrett, Jess, photographer Tim Zimmerman, Trollhaugen marketing director Marsha Hovey, and Roxy marketing duo Jenna Kuklinski and Nirvana Ortanez, but we also emphasized the open discussion format. This wasn’t a traditional Q&A, it was a opportunity for anyone to ask questions and share. For example, Mary Rand, Jill Perkins, Melissa Riitano, Amanda Hankison, Taylor Elliott, Fancy Rutherford, and more were in the audience and had lots of wisdom to share; the goal was to create a comfortable place for anyone that wanted to add to the discussion, whether asking questions or adding perspective.
The Pitch Sessions were held in BOB, the indoor concrete skatepark on the Wy’East Campus, home to High Cascade Snowboard Camp. B4BC ran a raffle to raise money. Fat Tire provided beverages for a happy hour. Snowboy set the stage by bringing everyone together at Mt. Hood. Roxy, Yeti, Sun Bum, and One Ball Jay contributed to goodie bags for the attendees. And of course, the discussion ran longer than planned and could have gone even longer. The first-ever Pitch Sessions was a success.
When information, experience, and advice is shared, we all grow stronger as a community. We raise each other up. So this May, the Pitch Sessions returns to Mt. Hood during IT’S TITS! Panelists for year two include: Barrett, Jess, Jill Perkins, Wasserman action sports agent Yulin Olliver, B4BC’s Megs Pischke, and Burton Snowboards’ Chelsea Waddell. While the event is private for attendees of IT’S TITS!, expect more to come from the Pitch Sessions. Stay tuned.
Big thanks for Fat Tire, B4BC, Yeti, Roxy, and One Ball Jay for supporting the Pitch Sessions. Huge thanks to Krush at Snowboy, and Gregg, Anna, and Bobby at High Cascade for helping us to make this happen! Can’t wait for this year!
Filmed and edited by Samantha Deleo.
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